Watching the Leaves Falls
by scribbles-in-the-margins
Summary: The wheel of time is forever turning, always coming back to the place it was before. As time races back to a past decision, can the remains of team Yellow Flash prevent their own sorrow from becoming someone else's? !Kakashi X Rin!
1. Prologue

Authors notes: I am not sure my normal readers will like this. It is something new, but something I feel rather pasionate about at the moment. The main pairing in this is Kakashi and Rin, but it is about much more than them. It is about their team, the team Kakashi took on, thier village and their sensei. It is about broken promises and dreams that disolve in your hands. Sadness, but joy and all with an under currant of loyalty. This is a story about the bonds of team that can never be broken.

Warning: There will be some sexual content. I don't see it being explicit. There will be some language. There will be violence. Perhaps this warrents the M rating, perhaps not. I don't know, so for now, it will stay an M.

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Watching the Leaves Fall

Prologue Six -- years earlier

Blood. Even as he knelt, the boy looked down at the form splayed before him. A chakra-infused, paper seal still in the man's hand and pressed to the boy's stomach. That seal was the only reason Naruto was now Naruto and not something else -- something more primal. They had been pushing the jinchuuriki's stamina and skill, seeing how the demon's cloak of chakra worked, how the boy could control it. Barriers had been broken that should have been respected and left intact. Both shinobi were guilty, perhaps the white haired sensei more so. His fifty plus years of life should have imparted the lesson to him -- those who play with fire are those who get burned.

Two days later, the bloodied toad hermit was looking down a small hill. A little village stretched out, a farming town of no strategic use, probably a place that hardly ever saw a shinobi. They were inside Lightning country, but not far inside, still in that no man's land of border towns. Jiraiya seemed to know exactly where they were going as they walked through the moonlit streets. The sun would be rising soon. People would be going about their day, unaware of who had arrived in their peaceful village.

Jiraiya led them to a small house, a clinic in the front and living quarters behind. They walked through the garden gate, even at night the scent of flowers and herbs filling the air with a relaxing perfume. A soft knock on the door, but it was answered too quick. Dark brown eyes looked back at them, the woman that answered the door was a slight slip, at first you would think she was younger than she was, but her eyes showed her age.

Without a word she let them in, gesturing to the upstairs. Lights in the clinic might attract attention, lights in the living quarters were typical. She led them to a study, a quick flick of chakra lighting the candles. Naruto was use to stares and looks, what he was not used to was how _she_ looked at him. Although she tended to Jiraiya's wounds, stripping the man of most of his clothes and lighting the room with pure green chakra, her eyes kept glancing towards the boy. Those eyes held no fear or scorn, rather something more resembling pain. Naruto was unsure how to react, instead he stayed uncharacteristically quiet and out of the way.

"Nezuchan," Jiraiya's voice was weak, the journey had been difficult in his condition. "The boy needs to eat."

With a shake to clear her head, she stood, "Naruto-kun, help me get this old lecher to someplace he can rest." The tone, even of the insult, was soft. She grabbed the man carefully by one arm and with the help of the blond boy, they placed Jiraiya into what was obviously the woman's own bed. After tucking the man in, she looked back to Naruto, that same soft look to her eyes. "Follow me, we'll get you something to eat."

He nodded, "Thanks uh…" He was sure that whatever Jiraiya had called her was her name. She was still looking at him so strangely. That Jiraiya had never introduced him to the woman had not yet occurred.

"Rin. My name is Rin. You are safe here, Naruto-kun." She fed him, her eyes never leaving him as she watched with that soft stare. For once, the boy didn't feel uncomfortable at having the attention. He felt -- safe'

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Thank you for reading, If anyone could spare the time to say what you think so far, I would appreciate.


	2. Chapter 1 A Safe Haven

Notes: I hope this builds from the prologue to show more where the story is going.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, I make no profit from this

Warning: There will be some sexual content. I don't see it being explicit. There will be some language. There will be violence. Perhaps this warrents the M rating, perhaps not. I don't know, so for now, it will stay an M.

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Chapter 1 - A Safe Haven

Pale armor flew through the trees. Two ANBU, one with blond hair and the other with silver paused on a branch as the blond haired one repositioned the silver haired. Blood covered their armor, it was obvious which one of them twas critically injured. The silver haired man was barely conscious, but they were close to the destination the blond had in mind.

Moving silently, the blond found his way to a quiet garden he had not been in for seven years now. As he walked to the door, surrounded in that same heady scent of flowers and herbs, he saw the door open. He hadn't even knocked this time, but those same soft brown eyes looked up at him, this time the alarm was obvious as she gestured them inside.

Her words were quick as she spoke, the fact she was a kunoichi obvious in that she recognized them by chakra signature and not physical features. "Bring Hatake-san upstairs, to the same room I treated Jiraiya-sama in."

Naruto laid out his old teacher in the middle of the diagnostic seal on the floor even as the medic started to pull off the ANBU armor with practiced ease. He watched as her slender hands unbuckled the blood covered armor and carelessly toss it aside. She pulled a kunai and sliced the neck of his shirt before slicing down the center to cut it off of his pale torso, leaving essentially a mask over his face. No one ever had to ask her to do that.

The blond knelt, watching her as she worked. Seals were drawn, scrolls unrolled and hand seals formed. The outlay of chakra was large, but the technique's precision was exact as far as the young man could tell. Without a medical team to back her up, she used civilian methods on some of the less serious injuries. Those delicate fingers of hers gracefully stitched wounds in quick even strokes of thread. She hardly said a word while she was working, only when she needed Naruto to fetch some sort of salve or a piece of equipment were instructions uttered in the softest of terms.

The sun had risen by the time time the procedure neared completion. Naruto had been near nodding off when his head snapped up. Someone else was in the house and moving around. He was watching the door when he saw the door start to slide open. Blue eyes narrowed and gripping a kunai he prepared for anything as the handle to the door turned.

A dark haired girl, not even old enough to have graduated from a ninja academy, peaked her head in. Her gray eyes widened when she saw the two obvious ninja, one injured and one not. She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by Rin.

"Michiyo-chan, go downstairs and start making breakfast." The woman knew she didn't have to say anything about not telling people. The girl very well knew this was not something to speak about. "When you are done, fetch Naruto-san here and he will join you for breakfast. I'll be down when I can."

The girl nodded, slipping from the room without any noise. Even as her steps faded down the stairs, the woman turned to Naruto. "Naruto-san, please pick him up, very carefully so that we don't reopen any of his wounds. I want to get him positioned now in a bed before the pain killers I gave him begin to wear off."

His head snapped back to her. Before he even really thought about it, he found himself following her calmly spoken order. It only made sense to do what she said. With her help, he gently picked up his sensei and followed her as she led him to the same room he had seen his sensei in seven years earlier.

The woman pulled back the blankets on her bed before she helped the boy position Kakashi onto the soft mattress. The covers tucked in around him, she paused to check on his vital signs again. She sat on the edge of the bed, her slight weight barely causing the mattress to dip as her glowing green hands traced over the blanket covering the man. Her eyes close, not caring that the boy was watching as she felt Kakashi's chakra, making sure he really was fine.

Michiyo called up the steps that breakfast was ready, the sudden noise jerking the woman out of her quiet contemplation. She gestured for Naruto to go, "I'll stay here with him for a little bit longer."

The boy was hesitant to leave, pausing to look back from the door. It didn't make sense that she would be up to anything devious though. Why outlay all of that chakra only to turn around and cause harm? Besides, Jiraiya had trusted the woman. Naruto knew from experience that there were very few that Jiraiya actually trusted. Very few people were on that list of who he would go to if he were critically injured – as far as Naruto knew, that list was only Tsunade, Shizune and this woman.

He reached the kitchen table, acting as if nothing were strange. The girl with pale eyes and dark hair had grilled fish, rice, and eggs prepared. It was simple but good food. Michiyo was watching him as they both sat down, finally asking, "Is my mother staying up there with him?" There was something strange to her tone that Naruto was not sure of.

"She said just for a little bit longer," The blond's voice seemed hoarse after the long run with his injured partner and former sensei. Water country was trying to do something, so Konoha's ANBU forces were up near lightning country trying to figure out why Mist-nin were in this country so far from their home.

The girl didn't say anything more, instead she ate, occasionally glancing up at the stairs as if expecting her mother to be down any moment. Both of them were finishing breakfast by the time the older woman appeared.

Leaving the two women downstairs, Naruto walked back to Kakashi's bedside. He sat down to rest as well as stand guard over the injured man. His fingers brushed against the pale forehead, the glint of lip gloss had not been missed. He frowned, unsure of what was going on in this place and who this woman was.

Upstairs, Kakashi regained consciousness, the warmth of the bed trying to keep him in the realm of dreams. His body relaxed as he drank in the soft scent of peaches. Such nostalgic emotions rarely touched his conscious, his subconscious though was more used to thoughts of that woman. The dream was slower to shake off this time. He perfectly remembered how she felt. It might surprise some that Kakashi was not as experienced in the sexual arena as a man who read smut in public would normally be. He was far from a virgin, yet no where near the title of deviant.

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10 years earlier

Two hitai-ate were tossed on the floor, intertwined symbols of Cloud and Leaf carelessly tossed aside. His cloth-covered lips ran down her neck as he unfastened her vest, tossing the garment to a the rapidly growing pile of village affiliations. Konoha shirt under Kumo pants. Sandals tossed into a heap. He paused once he got her down to just a thin white tank top and what had to be in his mind the most perfect white panties. He didn't care that she wore the designation of a foreign village now. His pale eye looked back into her brown eyes.

Carefully, her hands came up, her fingers running over the scar intersecting his eye. She made no move to remove his mask. Near any other woman in this situation would try to see his face, but not her. She leaned forward, slowly bringing their bodies together as she kissed just below his injured eye. She was the only woman who knew this was not just them in that bed, the third of their broken team was there in some way as well.

The day light was fading as he pressed her back onto his bed, the comforter carelessly pushed aside as the last of their clothes joined the pile on the floor. Everything about her body made his remember the times before this. Their stolen moments, and clandestine meetings. The thrill of a closet in the hospital. The forbidden feeling of an ANBU training room. This though, Rin looking up at him with half lidded eyes with warm brown hair fanned behind her head, silken locks resting on _his_ pillow.

He stretched her arm over her head, her fingers mere inches from their team pictures. It was a remembrance to happier times, when the three of them had been kids and innocent ... no they had never been innocent, but they had all been alive then. Now what was left was broken, but he didn't care. Not at that moment. Not when he had her arms stretched over her head and his lips trailed from her elbow to her collar bone. When he had tossed his mask didn't even occur to him. She hadn't only seen under the mask, she knew what it actually hid.

His body moved against hers. Every curve and movement familiar to him in a way that no other would ever be. Everything except her was forgotten, that night he stopped being Sharingan no Kakashi. He was never anything but her Kakashi-kun when he lay in her arms. That night there was no him or her, no Leaf, no Cloud ... just them. The pale star light the only witness to the fleeting moments when neither felt incomplete.

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Thank you for reading, I appreciate all and any reviews and try to respond to each. I hope to have updates happening each week. Please tell me what you think.


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